


The Time After

by fascra



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester is Protective of Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascra/pseuds/fascra
Summary: It’s been a month since Flagstaff and Dean still hasn’t so much as looked Sam in the eyes. And then, one day, Sam doesn’t come home from school. Again.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 18
Kudos: 174





	The Time After

Sammy’s been gone for nearly a week when they find him dangling by his wrists thirty miles out of town. They would’ve been quicker, maybe, but Dad had been _sure_ it wasn’t vampires, so goddamn sure they were extinct even when Dean pinned all their evidence to the wall and watched the lore match up like puzzle pieces. It wasn’t until they caught a man in an alley behind the one club in town, his fangs bursting through an already-dead prostitute’s jugular, that Dad agreed. An hour and a pint of dead man’s blood later, the vampire coughed up the address of a farmhouse an hour away.

The shed looks like a freaking torture chamber, blood splatters on the ground and old rusty farm tools in the corner and handcuffs hanging from the ceiling, but Dean can’t bring himself to care, because in the middle of the room hangs his little brother, his chin to his chest. 

He’s alive, if only barely, and Dean’s pretty sure that the sharp, shallow rise of his chest is the best thing he’s ever seen. Dad picks at the cuffs while he lifts his unconscious little brother up to take the weight off his wrists, whispering that it’s okay, he’s got him, everything’s gonna be fine. Sam’s neck is red hot against Dean’s cheek, it’s gotta be infected from the dozens of bites, but that’s okay, Dean can do infection, he’s been forcing antibiotics down Sam’s throat since the kid was five and throwing himself into every rusty pipe in Bobby’s junkyard. It’s okay. They’re fine. He can handle this.

Finally (fucking _finally_ ) Dad gets the cuffs off, and Sammy sags down into his arms. “Look at that,” Dean says, even though the kid’s not showing the slightest sign of consciousness. “I got you, little brother, it’s all good. Huh? You’re good, we’re getting you out of here.”

“Give him to me,” Dad says, which, yeah, no. Dad didn’t even think it was vampires, Dad doesn’t get to carry him. “Dean. It’ll be faster, we’ve gotta move.”

“I’ve got him,” Dean says, maybe a little sharply. He hoists his brother up so he’s laying across Dean’s arms like some swooning girl, and it’s easy, because at thirteen Sam is still only ninety pounds. Maybe eighty, with the weight he’s lost this week. Dean can carry him. 

Dad is pissed, rolling his eyes like Dean’s an idiot but they _do_ gotta move—they’re not sure if there are any more vamps left, and Sam’s a giant freaking handicap if they are—so he shakes his head and goes ahead anyway, ducking out of the small shed machete first. Dean follows quickly, staying close enough that if something comes, Dad can get it before it targets Sam. Sam’s paper-white and doesn’t look like he could survive another injury with more blood loss. Not that anything more’s gonna happen to him, Dean’s got him now, he’s gonna be fine. He’ll wake up on the ride home and start bitching about how long it took them to find him and the ugliness of rustic shed decor or whatever, and he’ll be just _fine._

They’re halfway to the car when Sammy moans and curls a little in his arms. “Hold on,” Dean whispers down at him, but the kid just groans again, face screwed up in pain. Fuck. Dean clutches him tighter and picks up the pace, trying to keep his footfall quiet as they race through the high grass. “‘S okay, Sammy, we’re almost at the car, see? You’re all good, I got you. Shh. Shh, ‘s okay.”

Dad gets there first, yanks open the back seat for them, and Dean pretty much slides in he’s moving so fast. “Drive,” he says desperately, but of course Dad’s already there, slamming the door behind them and moving around the front in a smooth motion, turning the keys and slamming the gas.

They’re maybe a mile away when Dean thinks maybe he can relax his grip on Sam a little. Kid’s out again, but he positions his head carefully on the jacket in his lap, so maybe he’ll feel a little safer when he comes to.

He searches for his dad’s eyes in the rearview, but they’re focused on the road ahead, his hands gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles are white. 

“Dad?” Dean asks quietly. 

No answer. 

He tries again anyway. “What’s the plan, we hitting the hospital?”

Dad sets his jaw, swallows hard. “Don’t think so. Hope not, with those marks on his neck, the hell we supposed say caused ‘em. What’s his pulse at?”

Dean fumbles, grabs Sam’s wrist (too small, too freaking thin, he wasn’t this thin a week ago). He squeezes his eyes shut, and after his best guess at fifteen seconds, announces, “Uh—thirty beats in fifteen, maybe? So one-twenty?”

“Motel first, then. I’ll drop you boys off, see if I can make off with a blood bag from the hospital. Or a blood bank, there’s gotta be one around here, I’ll find something. You’ll have to clean his wounds while I’m gone, Dean, med kit’s in the nightstand. And get some liquid in him, we don't know what they’ve given him.”

Dad’s rambling, never a good sign, but Sammy’s stirring in his lap so Dean can’t really bring himself to care. He runs a hand through his little brother’s hair (still long, and now filthy as well, Dean really needs to take some clippers to it), and whispers over Sammy’s groans. “You there, kiddo?”

“Mmm?” Sam asks. His eyes are scrunched like when he was a little kid trying to pretend he was still asleep on school mornings, except now he’s not pretending anything, he’s just in pain. “Wha’s happening?”

“Sammy,” he says. His hand keeps moving through the kid’s hair, and he should say more, explain something. “Sammy.”

“Keep him calm,” Dad orders from the front seat, as if Dean doesn’t know that.

“D’n?” Sam moves as if to sit up, groaning, but a firm hand on his shoulder keeps him down.

“Yeah, man, it’s me. Don’t move, okay? You’ve gotta be dizzy. You lost a lot of blood.”

“Yeah.” He sighs sleepily. “That… yeah.”

“How you feeling, you back with us?”

“You found me?” Sammy says. He blinks his eyes open a couple of times, clearly trying to keep himself awake, even though his eyes are closed again in half a second.

“‘Course we did,” he says, smoothing out the wrinkles in Sammy’s forehead with his thumb. “I ever not find you, kiddo? You gotta have more faith in me than that, c’mon.”

“Wasn’t sure you’d think to. I thought…”

“Shh,” he says. He isn’t sure he wants to know what Sam thought. He knows how they’ve been the last month—hardly speaking, except when Dean gives clipped orders or Sam starts bitching like he wants to pick a fight. “You lost a lot of blood, you’re not thinking right. We’re almost at the motel, okay?”

“Thought you’d think I ran,” Sammy mutters as if he hadn’t spoken. “Thought… ‘cause last time, when I went… thought you wouldn’t….”

“Shut up, Sam,” he says, not ungently. 

“Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“You still mad?”

They hit a pothole in the road before Dean has to answer and Sammy’s back to groaning, pushing at Dean’s hands so he can try to curl himself into a little ball. “Shh,” Dean says, rubbing at the kid’s shoulder to keep him on his back, and he’s stupidly glad for an excuse not to answer because what’s he supposed to say? Of course he’s still mad. Kid ran off without so much as a note, left Dean thinking he’d find the kid’s stupid tiny body shoved behind some dumpster, and now here he is on Dean’s lap looking like every one of his worst nightmares. Jesus. He grasps Sam’s shoulder and thinks that what he wants is to lock Sam in some safe happy box where nothing can ever get him and the kid can never leave.

Because the truth is they did think Sam had run when he didn’t come home from school last week. Of course they did. And it wasn’t until they had wasted a solid ten hours scouring bus station footage and sketchy, nearby motels that they thought to look if his stuff was even gone, and then it wasn’t, not even that ratty old composition book that Sam takes everywhere and hides under motel mattresses and somehow still thinks Dean doesn't know about. Until then, Dean was sure he ran. So sure he didn’t even think twice about it.

“Sam,” he says. “Hey. Look at me, Sammy.”

His brother—his sleepy, hurting, still so fucking small brother—bats his eyes open slowly. In the pale, unsteady light flickering in through the car windows, he looks impossibly young, like every other version of him that Dean has loved. “Yeah?”

“Even if I thought you had run, I still would’ve looked for you. Still would’ve brought you back,” he whispers, too quiet for their father to hear. “Don’t got no choice in that matter, little brother.”

“Yeah,” Sam says quietly.

“Ain’t nothing you could do to make me stop looking,” he says. “No matter how pissed I get.”

“Okay,” Sam whispers. 

A couple more minutes of Dean’s hand in his hair and the rumble of the Impala’s engine, and Sammy’s asleep again, warm and alive and almost-smiling beneath him.


End file.
